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The Message, a novel by Alec John Dawson |
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Part 1. The Descent - Chapter 11. Morning Callers |
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_ PART I. THE DESCENT CHAPTER XI. MORNING CALLERS
A sandy-haired youth-of-all-work, named Rivers, spent his days in the box we called the front office; a kind of lobby really, by which one entered the tolerably large and desperately untidy room in which Blaine and myself compiled each issue of The Mass. Blaine spent a good slice of all his days in keeping appointments, usually in Fleet Street bars. My days were spent in the main office of the paper, among the files, the scissors and paste, the books of reference, and the three Gargantuan waste-paper baskets. Here at different times I interviewed men of every European nationality and every known calling, besides innumerable followers of no recognized trade or profession. Among them all I cannot call to mind more than two or three who, by the most charitable stretch of imagination, could have been called gentlemen. Most of them were obviously, and in all ways seedy, shady characters--furtive, wordy creatures, full of vague, involved grievances. The greater proportion were foreigners; scallywags from the mean streets of every Continental capital; men familiar with prisons; men who talked of the fraternity of labour, and never did any work; men full of windy plans for the enrichment of humanity, who themselves must always borrow and never repay--money, food, shelter, and the other things for which honest folk give their labour. If an English Cabinet Minister had offered us an explanation of any political development we should have had small use for his contribution in The Mass, unless as an advertisement of our importance. For their teaching, for the text they gave us in our fulminations, we greatly preferred the rancorous and generally scurrilous vapourings of some unknown alien dumped upon our shores for the relief and benefit of his own country. We wanted no information from Admiralty Lords about the Navy, from commanding officers about the Army, from pro-Consuls about the Colonies, or from the Foreign Office about foreign relations. But a deserter or a man dismissed from either of the Services, a broker ne'er-do-well rejected as unfit by one of the Colonies, or a foreign agitator with stories to tell of Britain's duplicity abroad; these were all welcome fish for our net, and folk whom it was my duty to receive with respectful attention. From their perjured lips it became my mechanical duty to extract and publish wisdom for the use of our readers in the guidance of their lives and the exercise of their rights as citizens and ratepayers. I became adept at the work, and in the end accomplished it daily without interest, and with only occasional qualms of conscience. It was my living. On a sunshiny morning in June, which I remember very well, the sandy-haired Rivers brought me a visiting-card upon which I read the name of "Miss Constance Grey." In one corner of the card the words "Cape Town" had been crossed out and a London address written over them. I was engaged at the time with a large, pale, fat man from Stettin, whose mission it was to show me that the socialist working men of the Fatherland dearly loved their comrades in England, and that the paying of taxes for the defence of these islands was a preposterously absurd thing, for the reason that the Socialists would never allow Germany to go to war with England or with any other country. "The Destroyers," in their truckling to Demos, had already cut down Naval and Army estimates by more than one-half since their rise to power, and our Stettin ambassador was priming me regarding a demand for further reductions, prior to actual disarmament, to provide funds for the fixing of a minimum day's pay and a maximum day's work. The gentleman from Stettin was to provide us with material for a special article and a leading article. His proposals were to be made a "feature." However, I thought I had gone far enough with him at this time; and so, looking from his pendulous jowl to the card in my hand, I told Rivers to ask the lady to wait for two minutes, and to say that I would see her then. I remember Herr Mitmann found the occasion opportune for the airing of what I suppose he would have called his sense of humour. His English and his front teeth were equally badly broken, and his taste in jokes was almost as swinishly gross as his appearance. But I was able to be quit of him at length, and then Rivers ushered in Miss Constance Grey. As I rose to provide my visitor with a chair, I received the impression that she was a young and quietly well-dressed woman, with a notable pair of dark eyes. I thought of her as being no more than five-and-twenty years of age and pleasant to look upon. But her eyes were the feature that seized one's attention. They produced an impression of light and brilliancy, of vigour, intelligence, and charm. "I called to see you at the office of the Daily Gazette, Mr. Mordan, and this was the only address of yours they could give me, or I should have hesitated about intruding on you in working hours. I bring you an introduction from John Crondall." And with that she handed me a letter in Crondall's writing, and nodded in a friendly way when I asked permission to read it at once. "Please do," she said. She had no particular accent, but yet her speech differed slightly from that of the conventional Englishwoman of her class--the refined and well-educated Englishwoman, that is. I suppose the difference was rather one of expression, tone, and choice of phrase than a matter of accent. I doubt if one could easily find an example of it nowadays, increased communication having so much broadened our own colloquial diction that many of its conventional peculiarities have disappeared. But it existed then, and after a time I learned to place it as characteristic of the speech of Greater Britain, as distinguished from the English of those of us who lived always in this capital centre of the Empire. Miss Grey had the Colonial directness and vividness of speech; a larger, freer diction upon the whole than that of the Londoner born and bred; more racy, less clipped and formal, but, in certain ways, more correct. The society cliche, and the society fads of abbreviation and accent, were missing; and in their place was an easy, idiomatic directness, distinctly noticeable to a man like myself who had actually never been out of England. This it was that first struck me about Miss Grey; this and the warm brilliance of her eyes: a graphic, moving speech, a frank, compelling gaze; both indicative, as it seemed to me, of broadly sympathetic understanding. I read John Crondall's kindly letter with a good deal of interest, moved by the fact that his terse, friendly phrases recalled to me a phase of my own life which, though no more than a couple of years past, seemed to me wonderfully remote. I had been new to London and to Fleet Street then, full of aspirations, of earnestness, of independent aims and hopes; fresh from the University and the more leisured days of my life as the son of the rector of Tarn Regis. I had had glimpses of much that was sordid and squalid in London life, at the period John Crondall's letter recalled, but as yet there had been no sordidness in my own life. All that was far otherwise now, I felt. Cambridge and Dorset were a long way from the office of The Mass. I thought of the greasy Teuton nondescript for whom I had kept Miss Grey waiting, and I felt colour rise in my face as I read John Crondall's letter: "I expect you have been burgeoning mightily since I left London, and I should not be surprised to learn that you have put the Daily Gazette and its kind definitely behind you. You remember our talks? Tut, my dear fellow, Liberalism, Conservatism, Radicalism--it's of not the slightest consequence, and they're all much of a muchness. The thing is to stand to one's duty as a citizen of the Empire, not as a member of this or that little tin coterie; and if we stick honourably to that, nothing else matters. You will like Constance Grey; that is why I have asked her to look you up. She's sterling all through; her father's daughter to the backbone. And he was the man of whom Talbot said: 'Give me two Greys, and'--and a couple of other men he mentioned--'and a free hand, and Whitehall could go to sleep with its head on South Africa, and never be disturbed again.'"--When Crondall quoted his dead chief, the man whose personality had dominated British South Africa, one felt he had said his utmost.--"The principal thing that takes her to London now, I believe, is detail connected with a special series she has been engaged upon for The Times; fine stuff, from what I have seen of it. It is marvellous the grip this one little bit of a girl has of South African affairs." "Yes," I thought, now the fact was mentioned, "I suppose she is small." "I hope the articles will be well read, for there's a heap of the vitals of South Africa in them; and even if they are to cut us adrift altogether, it's as well 'The Destroyers' should know a little about us, and the country. Constance Grey's name and introductions will take her anywhere in London, or I would have asked your help in that way." I thought of Clement Blaine's friends, my own Fleet Street circle, and shifted uncomfortably in my chair. "As it is, the boot may be rather on the other leg, and she may be of some service to you. But in any case, I want you to know each other, because you are a good chap, and will interest her, I know; and because she is of the bigger Britain and will interest you. Things political are, of course, looking pretty blue for us all, and your particular friends--I rather hope perhaps they're not so much your friends by now--are certainly doing their level best to cut all moorings. But one must keep pegging away. The more cutting for them, the more splicing for us. But I do wish we could blindfold Europe until these 'Destroyers' had got enough rope, and satisfactorily hanged themselves; for if they go much farther, their hanging will come too late to save the situation. Well, salue!" I allowed my eyes to linger over the tail-end of the letter, while I thought. I was sensible of a very real embarrassment. There seemed a kind of treachery to John Crondall, a kind of unfairness to Miss Grey, in my receiving her there at all. By this time one had no illusions left regarding Clement Blaine and his circle, nor about The Mass. I knew that, at heart, I was ashamed, and with good reason, of my connection with both. Still, there I was; it was my living; and--I suppose my eyes must have wandered from the letter. At all events, evidently seeing that I had finished reading it, my visitor spoke. "I had an introduction to the editor of the Daily Gazette, so I took advantage of being there this afternoon to see him. A nice man, I thought, though I don't care for his paper. He remembered you as soon as I mentioned your name, and told me you--you were here. He seemed quite sorry you had left his paper; but I am sure I can understand the attraction of a position in which the whole concern is more or less in one's own hands. Mr. Delaney found me a copy of The Mass; so I have been studying you before calling. Perhaps you have inadvertently done so much by me, through The Times--a rather high and dry old institution, isn't it?" Naturally I had punctuated these remarks of hers, here and there. She had a very bright, alert way in talking, and now she added, easily, a sentence or two to the effect that it would be a dull world if we all held precisely the same views. She did the thing well, and in a few minutes I found myself chatting away with her in the most friendly manner. She managed with the utmost deftness to remove all ground for my embarrassment regarding my position. She talked for a while of South Africa, and the life she had lived there prior to her father's death; but she touched no topic which contained any controversial element. It seemed her aunt, a sister of her father's, had accompanied her to England, and she said: "I promised my aunt, Mrs. Van Homrey, that I would induce you to spare us an evening soon. She loves meeting friends of John Crondall. We dine at eight, but would fix any other hour if it suited you better." The end of it was I promised to dine with Miss Grey and her aunt in South Kensington on the following evening, and, after a quarter of an hour's very pleasant chat (twice interrupted by Rivers, who had people in his cupboard waiting to see me) my visitor rose to take her departure, with apologies for having trespassed upon a busy man's time. I told her with some warmth that the loss of my time was of no importance, and, with a thought as to the nature of my petty routine, I repeated the assurance. She smiled: "Ah, that's just the masculine insincerity of your gallantry," she said, "unworn, I see, by working with women. John Crondall would have sent me packing." "No doubt his time is of more value--better occupied." I had a mental vision of Clement Blaine (who grew stouter and slacker day by day) sitting drinking with Herr Mitmann of Stettin, in a favourite bar, within fifty yards of the office. "Still the insincerity of politeness," she laughed. "You forget I have read The Mass. I find you a terribly earnest partisan; very keenly occupied, I should say. Till to-morrow evening, then!" And she was gone, and Rivers was leading in, like a bear on a cord, a tousled Polish Jew named Kraunski, who was teaching us how the Metropolitan Police Force should be run, and how tyrannically its wicked myrmidons oppressed worthy citizens of Houndsditch, like Mr. Kraunski--quite a good Mass feature. So I stepped back again, feeling as though Constance Grey had carried away the pale London sunlight with her when she left my littered den. _ |
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